Numb (2 page)

He shook his
head again, seemingly still lost in the memory of his trip. "No,
it wasn't like that. Her mother would have freaked out. We would have
slept in separate rooms, but the layout of the cabin sparked
something inside of me. When I got back home I started looking into
property so that I could start building something similar."

Now was the
time to pounce. He was finally relaxing. Regardless of whether or not
his questionnaire was true, we were finally getting to his real
issue. It had something to do with this girl. I couldn't even say for
sure how I knew, but I knew. Teasing the details out of him and
working through the issues might take weeks or even months still, but
I finally had a target.

"What
happened after that?"

"You mean
after I started planning for the future? After I realized that I
wanted to spend the rest of my life with her? She left. Out of
nowhere, with zero warning, she packed up and left."

Brad stood up
and started walking towards the door. I violated nearly every tenet
of common sense and put myself between him and the exit. Something
about him had made this case more important than our twenty-minute
discussion could account for. He was obviously bigger and stronger
than me, but I still stepped into his path and put my hand up.

"Brad, you
can't leave now. We're just starting to make some progress. We need
to talk about what happened."

For a second I
thought he was going to hit me. He was angry enough that he was
actually shaking, but he took a deep breath and shook his head
instead.

"No,
Doctor. I really do believe that you're the best, but that just damns
me more. If being healed is going to require that I talk about what
happened with her, then the cure is worse than the disease. Stand
aside. I'm leaving now and you won't see me back here."

—The Story Continues in
Trapped
—

Publisher's Note:

If you've enjoyed this book, please consider signing up for the
author's
mailing list
.
By signing up you'll receive $10.00 worth of
free books. We'll be offering a special discount to existing fans for
the first week each new book is live, so signing up for his mailing list
will mean that you'll always know about new releases with plenty of
time to take advantage of the new release discount. As
always, if you ever have any questions about the order of
books in the series,
the
Reflections Reading Order Diagram
is
an excellent resource.

Acknowledgments:

The list of people who help out in this undertaking
doesn't change much from book to book, but that doesn't
mean that their effort is any less valuable as the months
roll by.

RJ Locksley and Amy Jirsa-Smith continue to do
outstanding work when it comes to the editing side of
things, and their help is much appreciated.

My advance readers do great work when it comes to
providing me story-focused feedback and finding the errors
I introduce in the course of fixing some of Amy and RJ's
finds. Mom, Dad, Shalese, Matthew, Mark, Mimi, Britney, Kim,
Chris, Heather Tucker, Janelle Gordinier, and Jenine Anderson
are some of the best readers a writer could hope to have and
I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be able to work
with them. Thank you all.

Lastly, none of this could happen without my wife,
Katie. She edits, provides feedback on my stories, and
creates the covers all while juggling a ton of other
responsibilities. Thanks, Katie.

About the Author:

Dean Murray is a prolific author with more than 25
titles across multiple pen names and more than 350,000
copies of his work currently in circulation.

Dean started reading seriously in the second grade due
to a competition and has spent most of the subsequent three
decades lost in other people's worlds.

Things worsened, or improved depending on your point
of view, when he first started experimenting with writing
while finishing up his accounting degree. These days Dean
has a wonderful wife and two lovely daughters to keep him
rather more grounded, but the idea of bringing others along
with him as he meets interesting new people in universes
nobody else has ever seen tends to drag him back to his
computer on a fairly regular basis.

Keep up to speed on Dean's latest
projects at
deanwrites.com
.
If you want to interact with readers who love the series as
much as you do, please consider checking out
the
Reflections Facebook page
or
Dean's Forum
.

Something powerful is stirring in the darkness. Something so ancient that even
creatures who've been alive for hundreds of years have long since discounted this new
threat as nothing more than myth.

Normal humans will be caught in the crossfire, but then that's always the way of
things. Geoffrey has no memory of his past life or any idea how to survive in the
violent, dangerous world in which he's trapped. Despite his best efforts, he's about to
find himself in the middle of a conflict that threatens to sweep away everything,
and everyone he's been fighting so hard to protect.

The only thing worse than having no family at all, is having a family that is out to hurt you. That would all be bad enough for a normal 17-year-old, but it's even worse for Alec Graves. A shape shifter's pack, his family, is the only thing stopping the other preternatural creatures out there from killing them.

Alec's pack isn't just neglectful, he's pretty sure that his father wants him dead. Alec is about to be sent to the front lines of a war between his people and everything else that goes bump in the night. His only chance of survival is to convince everyone around him that he's the perfect soldier, but there are lines that Alec won't cross, not for any price.

Publisher's Note:
Dean Murray's ongoing Reflection Series has been a stunning success with hundreds of thousands of copies in circulation, and a rich, complex world where choices—right or wrong—have real, profound consequences. Unsatisfied with the restrictions imposed on him by writing inside of the conventional series structure, Dean has returned to Sanctuary and the characters so many fans have fallen in love with.

Bound is the first in Dean's new Dark Reflections novels, an alternate timeline set in the same world and featuring many of the same characters, but with a profoundly different backstory.

Dean finally answers many of the questions that his most dedicated readers have been asking themselves for years. What would have happened if Alec's father hadn't been murdered by the Coun'hij, how would Adri's life have changed if her family hadn't been shattered in a horrific accident?

The answers may surprise you, but one thing is for sure; you'll see new sides of familiar faces and when all is said and done, you'll never be able to look at some of them the same.

Readers new to Dean Murray's writing can start with Bound in the Dark Reflections Series or Broken in the Reflections Series.

The invitation to join the secretive Guadel should have been the fulfillment of dreams Va'del didn't even realize he had. When his sponsors are killed in an ambush a short time later, he instead finds his probationary status revoked, and becomes a pawn between various factions inside the Guadel ruling body.

Jain's never known any life but that of a Guadel in training. She'd thought herself reconciled to the idea of a loveless marriage for the good of her people, but meeting Va'del changes everything. Their growing attraction flies against hundreds of years of precedent, but as wide-spread attacks threaten their world, the Guadel have no choice but to use even Jain and Va'del in their fight for survival.

Meet Charles Tucker, he has spent nearly 30 years living in
denial, trying desperately to hide from his past and the events
that shattered his heart beyond any possibility of healing. He
can't let anyone close, for doing so would open him up to being
hurt again, and there's no way he could survive another wounding.

Meet the Saunders family, new to the neighborhood and
teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Mark, the father, talks
a good story but is that all he is? His plan could hold the key
to reversing his family's financial misfortunes, or it could
wipe out everyone involved.

Meet Chet, a battered old '64 Chevy pickup that was there on
the night Charles' life imploded. For nearly three decades,
he has been locked away in an old barn, safely out of sight
if not completely out of mind. For 29 years Charles has
blamed the old pickup for the destruction of his life,
now he's about to find that the vehicle that destroyed his
life might be the key to his healing and a journey of
unexpected miracles.

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